Genes

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /d͡ʒiːnz/

Definitions

1. Units of hereditary information found in DNA that dictate physical traits and characteristics of an organism
2. Segments of DNA that carry instructions governing inherited traits in living beings
3. Fundamental biological components contained within chromosomes that determine genetic characteristics

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "genes" is that the word was built from a fragment of a longer coinage. In 1909, the Danish botanist Wilhelm Ludwig Johannsen needed a neutral term for the units of heredity, since the existing German word "Anlage" was vague and carried several meanings. He took the last syllable of "pangene", a term Charles Darwin had used in his theory of pangenesis, and isolated it as "Gen". Johannsen's proposal appeared in a German-language work, Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre. The syllable itself reaches back to Ancient Greek. "Gen" was adopted into German from "geneá", meaning "generation" or "descent", which comes from the aorist infinitive of "gígnomai", "to come into being". The Greek root is the same one behind words about birth and origin, so the modern term carries that idea of inheritance from one generation to the next.

Synonyms: heredity, DNA, chromosome, genetic material, traits